Re-Viewed: Steven Spielberg's dinosaur classic 'Jurassic Park'

The 20th anniversary re-release of Jurassic Park in eye-popping, migraine-inducing 3D was inevitable - and if James Cameron is to be believed, all our entertainment ultimately heading the same way is equally so. But far from bolstering Cameron's statements, all the newly rendered take on Steven Spielberg's near-perfect dino blockbuster does is reinforce just how irrelevant 3D becomes when you're dealing with a piece of entertainment this airtight.

The world of Jurassic Park is already immersive. From the first moment Sam Neill and Laura Dern's awe-struck scientists clap eyes on the park's prehistoric menagerie and lush, otherworldly greenery, you're along for the ride and gazing in wide-eyed wonder right alongside them.

The effect of a T-Rex lurching out of rain-slatted darkness towards a car holding two defenceless children is as terrifying now as it was 20 years ago, and doesn't become any more so in three dimensions. So if you're going for an anniversary re-watch, don't feel the need to fork out for the sloppily retro-fitted update: the original formula's all you need.

Detractors in 1993 critiqued Michael Crichton and David Koepp's script for flattening down the characters from Crichton's original novel into archetypes, but everyone – from Neill and Dern's eager-beaver couple to Jeff Goldblum's "rock star" mathematician to Richard Attenborough's gently eccentric park owner - feels real and utterly loveable. Crichton and Koepp allow a long build-up before the first dino attack, and with good reason: by the time the electrical fences fall and our heroes are trapped, we really care what happens to them.

It's an immensely efficient script, sketching in punchy character dynamics that are surface-deep by design: nobody watching actually wants to see a love triangle play out between Grant, Settler and Malcolm, but it's fun to watch it snarkliy teased in the early going, while Grant's dislike of children sets up a simple but satisfying payoff down the line as he steps up to protect the young'uns.

Attenborough's John Hammond does present an issue, because his page-to-screen transformation from greedy megalomaniac to twinkly idealist leaves an imbalance in the film. With no human antagonist to root against - Nedry and the lawyer are both too thinly drawn to count - the story becomes much more morally straightforward, paying lip service to the idea of man's doomed attempt to harness nature without demonstrating much real human consequence.

But you'd have to be in a very, very pedantic mood indeed for any of this to diminish your enjoyment. Spielberg's absolute mastery of both wonder and terror has seldom been showcased better, and it's genuinely striking how little the effects have dated. It's easy to forget how expressive the dinosaurs are, beyond those that are simply out for blood - the ill Triceratops the team comes across looks affectingly wounded and gentle, emphasising the blithe cruelty of Hammond's endeavour.

Jurassic Park just works. For all the grand scale action and jaw-dropping effects, it is never for a single moment cheesy, or silly, or lazy. It's pure, efficient, big-hearted entertainment from beginning to end, devoid of sentiment, wittily written and as terrifying now as it ever was.